Emperor Hirohito.
His Majesty spoke quickly, faster than she could entirely follow. But there was one word that he repeated, one word that hung like an ornament on this speech. And Meiko, much to her surprise, found herself translating that word into her native tongue, a language she had not dared to even dream in for so long. That Korean word was soft and playful compared to its Japanese equivalent. She let it bounce through her mind like a ball. Pok’tan … pok’tan …
A bomb. These men were weeping about a bomb. A big one.
She burst into laughter. She couldn’t help it. And when she did the men startled, saw her standing over them, and blinked at her as if jarred from sleep. In that moment, Meiko knew her death was imminent, that one of them would yank out his side pistol and cut her down where she stood. But neither did. They just looked up at her, and, not caring who she was or what she was, pleaded with their wet frowns for an emotion that she could not fathom. These men, who had urinated on her, who had burned her legs with hot pokers, who had smeared their semen in her eyes, were begging Meiko for a small shred of sympathy.
She couldn’t help it. She laughed all the harder.
Chapter 2
The pound and rush of alien traffic, long shiny streams of Hyundai Hyundai Hyundai racing through the blink and blare of this February Friday, and it took coming to Korea for me to realize that enduring friendships are built on a foundation of mutual envy. I am friends with Rob Cruise because part of me wants to be him. Let’s get that straight, right off the bat. He and Justin Ford, my roommate, have been in this country for two years. Their existence here in Seoul seems like a neverending epilogue to tales already climaxed, lives back in Canada full of shut doors and embarrassing tragedies. I can relate to that.
The three of us stand upon the two words that will ensure I find my way home tonight — Daechi Sa Guh Rhee. “Commit to memory,” they’ve told me, “in case we get separated. It means Daechi Intersection. Say it to a cabbie just like that — Daechi Sa Guh Rhee — and he’ll take you right back here.” This first week in, I’ve been thinking these men have adopted me, looking out for my safety in this city of 11 million people, but now I’m wondering if they’re having fun at my expense. It’s clear they’ve misled me about tonight’s activities. They said “bar” and I heard “pub” ( hof they call them here, just like in Germany) but these guys are obviously dolled up for something else and I’m dressed like a frump by comparison. We’re not going to a pub, I’ve now learned. We’re going to a club, a dance club. Thumping techno and bright spinning lights and boys with boners in their cargo pants — some of my least favourite things. Rob Cruise, who is wearing cargo pants below his winter jacket, has begun dancing already, standing at the Sa Guh Rhee with knees pumping like he needs to pee, cigarette making hurried trips to his lips. We’ll hop in a cab as soon as Jon Hung shows up. Oh wait, there he is, descending the grimy stairs of a PC Room on the other side of the street.
“Look at the white boys standing on the corner!” he shouts as he crosses the intersection.
“Whatever you say, chink!” Rob smiles as he flicks his cigarette to the gutter.
Jon Hung is not a chink. He is a kyopo — dad’s Korean, mom’s American — and he possesses the Hawaiian good looks and designer clothes that scream to the world I have half an MBA and will go get the other half just as soon as I’m done with this ridiculous antisabbatical. Despite his heritage, he speaks less Korean than I do, and I’ve been in this country exactly eight days.
“You’re going to have fun, so relax,” he says to me, spotting my body language. “Is that what you’re wearing?”
“Don’t listen to him,” Rob Cruise tells me. “The club we’re going to, most girls won’t care what you’re wearing.”
Justin, who says nothing, steps off the curb to hail us a taxi. One pulls up within seconds, winking out its dome light. The four of us pile in, Rob Cruise presuming shotgun, and then we’re off, joining the long, shiny streams of Hyundai Hyundai Hyundai.
You don’t so much see Seoul’s neon as you taste it, like bright hard Christmas candy, reds and greens sprayed out across the city as if fired from a cannon. As our cab races northward toward the lugubrious Han River, I figure I’ll never get used to this nonstop showcase of luminance. A landscape choked with discos and Starbucks outlets and soju tents on the sidewalks, with street-side barbecues and 7-Elevens that will let you drink beer on plastic furniture set up out front. As we settle in for the ride, Rob Cruise begins his complaining. He’s been a flame thrower at the urinal for several weeks now. The nurses at the clinic near our school have started recognizing him when he walks in; the pharmacist doesn’t even need to see the slip anymore to fetch him the right antibiotics.
“Dude, why don’t you wear a fucking condom?” Jon Hung asks.
Rob laughs at this. “A lot of Korean girls don’t like them. They got the whole rhythm method going on.” Voguing his hands to show rhythm.
When I find it funny that he finds it funny, I don’t recognize myself. I should be ashamed that his insouciance ignites a profound ache in me. Deflated, I lean back and try to look out the cab’s window, but Justin’s head blocks my view as he stares into the night.
Rob Cruise catches my sinking mood in the cabbie’s mirror and twists around to face the backseat. This is where the envy is supposed to kick in, where he imbues the air of the cab with his raunchy wisdom. Is he really thirty-three years old? The guys have heard all this stuff before, but it doesn’t matter because I’m the target. Rob begins telling me about life as a successful player, about how the best moments come when the serial seducer becomes the seduced. On those special nights, the girl he’s with will seize the lead with needs that nearly scare him. He loses control of the situation, and that’s his favourite part. Rob makes even the worries afterward, the insipient burn at the urinal that comes later, sound like an adventure unto itself. He details the inner rawness, the unwelcome discharge, the swelling that weighs on him like guilt.
“It sounds like the clap,” I sniff.
“It’s more than the clap,” he replies, adjusting his groin. “It’s like a fucking standing ovation!”
And we roar, loud enough to startle the Korean cabbie. Even Justin joins in, forsaking his stare out the window, laughing his deep bell-like laugh, perhaps forgetting for an instant that he once had a kid in Nova Scotia who died.
Our cab flies over a bridge crossing the Han, makes the turnoff, and then grinds to a near halt as we join the constipated line of other cabs oozing into Itaewon. Finally we make it to the strip, pay the cabbie, and get out. The street is an open-air party, a festival of boozy expat teachers, of Korean beauties, of U.S. army guys on the hunt for love and war. This is Itaewon, the foreign quarter, adjacent to Yongsan Garrison, the largest U.S. army base in the country. I will come to know this place as a hive of sexual hysteria with a neon glint of violence.
“It’s this way,” Rob says.
On the hike up the hill and through bewildering side streets I spot at least three hofs and nearly beg us to stop. But these men are on a mission — even Justin seems keen. We finally land in a lineup outside a two-storey club called Jokers Red, its sign a splay of cards and an evil clown face. The Korean girls lined up to get in are not dressed for February. They are shivering sticks in miniskirts and tube tops, more concerned with looking hot than being warm. Rob is nearly bursting. At the door, I’m burglarized for a cover charge, follow the men inside, and then get smacked with the thumpthumpthump and the epilepsy of strobe